31 July 2016

I've done my
weekly shopping and look very much forward to cooking with these
ingredients! Finally I have a can of jackfruit. I'm not sure yet what
I will cook with it, but I'm sure it will be tasty. I'll need to look
for some inspiration from my fellow bloggers. I can also see other
lovely fresh and light summer dishes in my immediate future. All
shall be revealed later.

27 July 2016

I rarely leave any
potatoes to spare, but here's a roll recipe for just those occassions
when too many potatoes have been roasted. Of course the potatoes can
also be roasted especially for these spelt rolls. I really like
potatoes in different kind of breads and this is just one of my basic
roll recipes, so easy to make and very economical and tasty.

Recipe for 10 rolls

Ingredients

6 roasted new
potatoes

25 g butter

200 ml lukewarm
water

1 tbsp dry yeast

300 g spelt flour

1 tsp salt

Method

Mash the potatoes
and melt the butter.

Add the yeast,
salt, water and butter to the potatoes and mix.

Gradually add the
flour and knead.

Let rise under a
teatowel for about one hour.

Shape rolls from
the dough.

Bake at 250 C for
about 15 minutes.

Enjoy warm or
later on once cooled.

I
want to share with this rolls recipe with Credit Crunch Munchhosted by Lancashire Foodin July and co-hosted by
Fab Food 4 All and
Fuss Free Flavours,
as this is quite a cunning way using a few left-over roast potatoes.
All other ingredients in this recipe are basic and cheap as well. It
really pays off baking your own bread and it's so wonderful to have
fresh bread!

24 July 2016

I can proudly
announce the end to this year's Tomato Festival. This week has
been full of cooking with tomatoes for me and without a doubt, the
tomato cooking will continue. Sometimes posting daily can be quite
challenging, but I somehow managed, and you can find my tomato
recipes in the sidebar on the right hand side. Rather than talking
about my cooking, I want to dedicate this post to the wonderful
contributions that I received through several different channels. I
am very grateful for each and every contact. Thank you so much for
being part of the Tomato Festival again this year!

So let's start
with the contributions. I received a lovely email and recipe from a
reader called Vegan Rob. He sent me a vegan tomato curry
recipe that sounds so tasty! He also attached a picture of the dish to the
email and he wrote:

“Hello Veghog

I often read your
excellent blog to get recipe ideas. Even though I don't blog myself I
thought I'd share my recipe for vegan tomato curry with you for your
tomato festival. It's not a very precise recipe, but it should work
anyway!

You will need:

Tomatoes (I used
12 medium vine tomatoes, each about 4-5cm in diameter, chopped into 8
pieces)

Chickpeas, about
250-300g, cooked beforehand, or 1 can

2 large onions

Fresh coriander
leaves

Tomato puree

5 cloves of garlic

A chili pepper

A thumb sized
piece of ginger

Vegetable oil

Spices

Bay leaves

Fry 2 large onions
in a little vegetable oil on a medium heat until they are caramelised
and deep brown. Add a pinch or two of salt to help draw the moisture
out of the onions. Be careful not to burn the onions, you'll want to
fry in a large heavy pan with a lid and stir every few minutes. This
might take anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour.

When the onions
are done, add about 5 cloves of garlic, a medium sized chili and a
thumb sized piece of ginger, all finely chopped. Fry for a further 2
minutes, with stirring. Add another splash of oil if the mixture
looks a little dry.

Add some garam
masala and fry for a further minute. I made my from the seeds from a
single green coriander pod, 3 cloves and a level teaspoon each of
coriander seeds, ground cumin and onion seeds. All these components
should be ground before use, and rather than precook the mix it
worked fine just frying it with the other ingredients.

Add a teaspoon
each of ground turmeric, fry for a further 30 seconds then add the
tomatoes and chick peas. The tomatoes will start to release their
juices, but add a little water so most of the mix in the pan is
covered. Add two bay leaves, remove these just before serving. Reduce
to a low heat so the mixture boils, and reduce for at least 30
minutes.

About ten minutes
before serving, taste and add enough tomato puree to get the colour
and taste correct. This might be one or more tablespoons. Also add a
teaspoon or so of smoky paprika and check for seasoning and spicing.

Add a generous
amount of roughly chopped coriander leaves just before serving. I
served the curry on its own, but it would work well with rice or
breads.

I hope you like
the recipe, keep up the good work!

Vegan Rob”

Thank you so much
for your contribution, Rob! I really have to try this recipe soon!

I also received
some posts from fellow vegetarian food bloggers.

Shaheen
posted another vegan recipe forRamiro Pepper and Harissa Tomato Potatoes with Black Pudding.
This dish is nice looking and vibrantly red. It's made with new
potatoes, tomatoes and red pepper and spiced with harissa. I'm very
curious about the vegan black pudding that Shaheen served the dish
with. Maybe I'm brave enough to taste it one day to find out what it
tastes like. I have seen it in my local health food shop and Shaheen
has shared several recipes with it.

Laura shared
two tomato recipes from her blog archives, a tomato sauce for preserving and tomato koftas. A homemade tomato sauce
for preserving is a very nice and useful idea. I hope I'd have the
time to make some this year. The tomato koftas also sound very
delicious, chopped tomatoes are made into a mixture with herbs and
then fried until golden brown. This would be a very nice summer snack
with a dip.

Then I received
pictures of homegrown tomato plants in Twitter from Valeria Valo
(@ValeriaValo) and I thought it would be nice to share them with the
Tomato Festival, as they fitted the theme so well. She is growing her
tomato plants in my home country Finland and wanted to share the
progress of the plants. She is growing jersey, beefsteak and roma
tomato variations. The vines are looking very good and I'm sure that
she will have a wonderful crops.

Here's
my last own recipe for The VegHog's Tomato Festival,
but I will be posting the all important round up later, which
contains your contributions as well. Remember to read it, as I got
some very nice recipes from my readers!

So
here are just simple, but so tasty tomato and olive bruschettas. I
used a very nice olive bread in these, which added even more olives,
but any sourdough bread would be nice in these.

Ingredients

Slices of olive
bread

Selected tomatoes

Green olives

1 garlic clove

Olive oil

Fresh basil

Salt

Ground black
pepper

Method

Slice the bread,
tomatoes and olives.

Toast the breads
lightly. Cut the garlic clove in half and rub it onto the bread
slices.

Mix the tomatoes
and olives in a bowl with some good quality olive oil and season with
fresh basil, salt and ground black pepper.

23 July 2016

Finally it's the
weekend and it's sunny and warm over here! I'm so happy about it, and
even happier to be able to share another tomato recipe with you. This
time I made a smoky vegetable jambalaya full of good vegetables and
luscious local tomatoes. This is summer food at its best!

Ingredients

1 red onion

3 garlic cloves

1 red chilli

2 romano peppers

Olive oil

300 g cherry vine
tomatoes

300 g paella rice

Sprinkle of smoked
paprika

½ tsp liquid
smoke

1 l vegetable
stock

200 g sugar snap
peas

140 g sweetcorn

Fresh pea shoots
for serving

Method

Chop the onion,
garlic, chilli and romano peppers and start cooking them in olive
oil. Cook on the hob for a few minutes, then add the halved cherry
vine tomatoes and put to the oven to roast. I roasted at about 150 C
first under a lid in order to get the liquids out. Stir occasionally
and roast until the tomatoes are soft. Remember that not everything
needs to be fully cooked, as the jambalaya will be returned to the
oven later.

Mix the paella
rice in and season with smoked paprika and liquid smoke. Also add the
half of the vegetable stock and return to the oven to simmer under
lid. Keep an eye on it and stir occasionally and keep adding more
stock when needed.

Add the sugar snap
peas and sweetcorn when the rice is nearly done. Cook everything
together until you are happy with the flavours. Keep adding
seasoning, if needed.

Serve with fresh
pea shoots and enjoy!

Due to the green
components in this dish I want to share this recipe with Eat Your Greens that Shaheen is hosting this month. Obviously this is also
another post to my Tomato Festival.

22 July 2016

The VegHog's Tomato Festivalwill sadly soon be over for this year, but you
still have time to submit your recipes before midnight on Saturday
23rd July. I will be writing a round up post in the end.

Today I'm just
sharing with you a quick side dish or lunch recipe of stuffed
heirloom tomatoes. I stuffed the heirloom tomatoes with mozzarella
and fragrant garlic and basil mix and then baked until nicely soft
with a cheesy filling. I really like stuffed vegetables, although
only quite rarely make them these days.

Ingredients

4 large heirloom
tomatoes

250 g mozzarella

2 garlic cloves

Handful of fresh
basil

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground
black pepper

Breadcrumbs

Olive oil

Method

Cut a lid off of
each heirloom tomato and remove the insides.

Cook the inside
pulp in a pan until it's a firm sauce and excess liquid has
evaporated.

Cut mozzarella
into cubes and mix it in a bowl with a with the finely chopped garlic
and fresh basil and season with salt and pepper.

Stuff the tomato
shells with the mozzarella mix, tomato sauce and little added
breadcrumbs. Cover them again with the lid.

Brush the tomatoes
with olive oil and bake at 200 C for about 25 minutes.

21 July 2016

Today has been a
very crazy day at work and I just arrived back home, about five hours
later than planned. I was obviously hoping to be able to post
something a little bit earlier, but if I write this quickly, I might
just be able to post this when it's still Thursday.

So, the other day
I made once again a simple gnocchi and tomato dish. Gnocchi or pasta
with quickly fried fresh tomatoes and garlic with some added
mozzarella or burrata are normally my absolute weekday meal
favourites. This sort of dishes are so quick to make, yet they are
filling and contain all the good things. I added some burrata to it
this time, although I normally use mozzarella.

For this dish I
just cooked some shop bought gnocchi and quickly fried the tomatoes
in a hot pan. I also added some lightly cooked garlic, fresh basil
leaves and drizzled some good quality olive oil on the top. Then I
served the tomatoes with the burrata and gnocchi. This was perhaps a
bit more posh version of this weekday favourite of mine.

I really hope to
be home earlier tomorrow to be able to post another tomato recipe.
Today my only worry while getting home, was about my Tomato Festival!

20 July 2016

I hope you are
enjoying this week. The weather here in southern England is hot for
the first time this summer. It's nice, but doesn't really encourage
for cooking. I tried to make a fresher version of veggie tacos, which
would be more suitable for a hotter weather.

I was inspired to
cook this dish by a Tomato tacos with guacamole recipe from
Mat Follas' vegetarian cookbook Vegetable Perfection (p.
56-57). I basically just took the idea of adding fresh tomato salsa
into tacos, but also wanted to add a filling agent to them. I chose
to add some warm spiced tomato rice to these tacos. They were quite
great and I will certainly make them again.

Of course this is
another recipe for my annual Tomato Festival, which is running
this week. I am trying to show some variety in cooking veggie meals
with tomatoes. Tacos are some of my all time favourites and it's nice
to have them with fresh tomatoes in the summer.

Ingredients

For the rice

1 cup red camargue
and wild rice

1 onion

1 green chilli

2 garlic cloves

Rapeseed oil

3 tomatoes

Vegetable stock
powder

Ground cumin

Ground coriander

Smoked paprika

Salt

Ground black
pepper

Smoked chilli
paste

Juice of ½ lime

For the tomatoes

300 g selected
tomatoes

Juice of 1 lime

Fresh coriander
leaves

Salt

Other ingredients

12 crunchy taco
shells

Cheese

Sour cream

Method

Cook the rice
first in pilaf fashion. Chop the onion and garlic and cook them in
oil until soft. Then add the tomatoes and add simmer for a while. Add
the rice, seasoning and vegetable stock and cook until done and with
nice spicy flavours.

Chop the tomatoes
for the salsa and mix with lime juice, fresh coriander leaves and
salt.

Assemble the tacos
and serve them with cheese and sour cream and possibly some extra
smoked chilli paste on the side.

19 July 2016

The VegHog's Tomato Festival continues and here is a quite different tomato
idea to yesterday'spasta bolognese. I made some oak smoked
tomato and pepper bagels, which were extremely tasty but also quick
to make. Tomatoes are a brilliant ingredient for different breakfast
variations and I quite often find myself using tomatoes on breakfast
breads or omelettes. These hearty and smoky bagels would prepare you
well for any day. I combined fresh and oak smoked tomatoes in these.
If you can't get a hold of oak smoked tomatoes, substitute them with
sundried tomatoes.

Here's how I made
these bagels:

Ingredients

½ red onion

1 romano pepper

Olive oil

Few oak smoked
tomatoes

Few mini plum
tomatoes

Birch smoked salt

Ground black
pepper

100 g Havarti
cheese

Fresh basil

Lamb's lettuce

4 sesame bagels

Method

Cut the red onion
and romano pepper into half rings and fry them briefly in oil in a
pan.

Cut the bagels in
half and put the onions, peppers, oak smoked tomatoes and mini plum
tomatoes on them and season with salt and pepper.

Add the cheese and
bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until the cheese has melted.

18 July 2016

To start things
off for the Tomato Festival, I wanted to post a classic tomato
recipe, but such a good one: a vegetarian pasta bolognese. I love an
intense bolognese sauce made with lots of veggies, soya mince and quality
tomato passata served with lovely pasta. I let my sauce simmer for quite a while to get the
desired results, and in the end it was so good. Actually the sauce is
vegan, so if you use vegan pasta and substitute the pasta cheese for
serving, this meal is fully vegan.

Ingredients

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

2 carrots

Olive oil

2 tomatoes

200 g baby button
mushrooms

500 g tomato
passata

1 cup dried soya
mince

3 tbsp tomato
purée

Smoked paprika to
taste

Salt to taste

Ground black
pepper to taste

Vegetable stock
extract to taste

Pasta of your
choice

Vegetarian pasta
cheese for serving

Method

Chop the onion and
garlic finely and cut the carrots into small cubes. Start cooking the
onion in olive oil until soft and slightly browned. Then add the
carrots for a while followed by the garlic.

Slice the
mushrooms thinly and also add them to the pan. Cook for a few minutes
and then cover with the tomato passata. Let simmer under the lid for
quite a while.

Cook the soya
mince in the meanwhile and add it later to the sauce, when it's about
halfway done.

Who is The VegHog?

A vegetarian hobby cook and urban gardener born in Finland, currently living in Denmark. I try to develop my cooking skills by making a wide variety of veggie dishes, some of them traditional and some new creations. My favourites include veggie burgers, squashes, organic and local produce, cider, spelt, rye, pizzas, pasta dishes, risottos and sea-buckthorn.
Follow theveghog on Instagram and @TheVegHog on Twitter!